Archives

When we first began following the inspiration blog mysteriously known as I’m Revolting, we knew we’d found a kindred spirit, at least aesthetically. (If you’re even the slightest fan of our Pinterest, you should know that many of our posts originate with I’m Revolting’s boards, or result from tumbling down the internet rabbit hole after reading one of her posts.) But it was only when we asked the Los Angeles–based blogger — whose real name is Su Wu — to pen one of our Peer Review columns that we truly knew we’d stumbled upon one of our own: A former journalist who threw the contents of her interior world online after the publication for which she was writing folded, Wu is an image collector, a thinker, and a fantastic writer to boot, which is why she can introduce herself better than we ever could:

“There’s nothing quite as satisfying as the exercise of attaching reason to emotion, and trying to figure out why something provokes a certain feeling, or to really be specific about the things that create that feeling. I was working as a visual arts critic, writing reviews of exhibitions, and when the publication I was writing for closed, I started I’m Revolting as a way to gather ideas and look for recurring themes in what captured my attention. I now write the Storyboard column for the Etsy Blog and do a lot more image collecting on Pinterest; I’m also curating a pop-up shop for Creatures of Comfort LA in October. The common thread among the works to which I am drawn changes all the time, but I do feel an attachment to certain philosophers, and when a work resonates it often has some connection to these deeply held theories of beauty and art — particularly R.G. Collingwood’s theory on accidents and Kant’s theory of the grotesque. I like flaws and restraint and humor, which is also a sort of disruption. My blog name captures who I want to be, and the (almost conflicting) ideals I struggle with most, probably because they are almost conflicting. I grew up in a social justice household — my mom still goes every year on Mother’s Day to sit in silent protest outside a nuclear facility — and I’m an impatient, unsettled person who longs for things to be not how they are. That’s part of the raw appeal of art and design for me, I think, that it’s always concerned about what might exist that doesn’t already.”

Wu first posted about the Los Angeles artist behind a heavy, handmade pair of kaleidoscopic glasses known as Future Eyes earlier this summer, but in light of the pop-up shop she’s curating for Creatures of Comfort this fall, she became newly obsessed with the frames and asked if she could cover him for Sight Unseen. What follows is their brief Q+A; look for more Sight Unseen contributions from Wu coming soon, and stop in to Creatures of Comfort Los Angeles if you’re in town this October!WORDS BY SU WU of I’M REVOLTING

Before I met him, someone I know not very well told me that Brent Pearson is old, and not old like when you’re a teenager and the rest of your life seems far away and ancient, but actually old. I’m still trying to figure what she meant by this because Brent Pearson is not old. More importantly, he seems to me to be pretty much the opposite of whatever an old soul would be, which is an inventor and science-fiction writer (with his own publishing imprint, Pale House), someone who has filled a life with wonder at what might happen if we danced words or saw things as insects do. The first time we met, we sat on a wooden bench in our neighborhood and talked only about ideas, about Aldous Huxley and blindness, about sound installations and mathematical truths, all of which led to the creation of Future Eyes, Pearson’s line of glasses filled with hand-cut kaleidoscope lenses. He’s making a special pair with holes in the arms to wear with a neck strap, for an I’m Revolting pop-up opening in October at the Creatures of Comfort store in Los Angeles, and they’re awesome. A glimpse at his inspirations:I’M REVOLTING: I feel like inventors, more than most, really long for the world to be different. What does it mean to see things differently?
FUTURE EYES: When you explore a sense you can go beyond what is considered normal to your mind. Future Eyes asks you to increase your optical abilities, enhancing focus power and awareness. It also reminds you that the world responds to your imagination, which is the essence of change.I’M REVOLTING: I love your idea of time travel: that if things don’t exist until we experience them, and we can sharpen our senses to experience things a bit more quickly, then that might be a form of time travel. What isn’t a form of time travel?
FUTURE EYES: We are traveling through space and time in every moment as is everything and everyone. I have certain ideas about time travel based on my experiences with Future Eyes because they sharpen awareness. The present can be considered the future to someone who lives in the past. I am more in the present and less in the past when I wear these glasses because I’m being teleported from the worlds of memories into the fullness of now.I’M REVOLTING: If enough people practiced seeing the world through kaleidoscope glasses, how might we evolve? Should we all be doing optical aerobics?
FUTURE EYES: The word “kaleidoscope” is a very wonderful word. Kaleidoscope comes from the Ancient Greek words Kalos, Eidos, and Skopeo – Beauty, Shape, and to Look. In other words it means to see the beauty of life. Optical aerobics is an idea I am developing to allow for the advancement of human perception by conscious sensory exploration.